Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: NIS America
Genre: JRPG, Dungeon Crawler
Format: Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4, Playstation Vita
Released: September 21st 2018
Purchase Labyrinth of Refrain here: https://store.nisamerica.com/preorders/labyrinth-of-refrain-coven-of-dusk/labyrinth-of-refrain-coven-of-dusk-limited-edition-switch
You know by now. I love me a JRPG. Labyrinth of Refrain fits nicely in that category. Labyrinth oozes style with it’s distinct Disgaea art and quirky personalities. The enemy designs are just as impressive. From the big nosed trolls to the barely visible fleas, there’s a decent amount of variety too and not much in the way of palette swaps either. The music is pretty funky as well. There’s a few standout songs but all you should enjoy if only for how different the soundtrack feels compared to the majority of soundtracks these days.
There’s a lot of tiny details in this game as well. From the flavour text when you pick up items to the narrator adding extra phrases to conversations. The voice acting is well done too. Especially Madam Dronya who is an all round cool character. Battles take place via turn based action. The party can be pretty huge as well with between 1 and 15 playable characters split across 5 units. Each unit can have up to 3 characters who can slice and dice with support characters also boosting the parties.
During battle you can also see chibi versions of your characters dart in and tear your enemies a new one if you do a critical hit. Crits can also turn into gore hits with blow of an enemies limb for extra damage as well. There are a bunch of ways to link up attacks with your team making if feel like an army of friends pulling together.
How do you make your party I hear you cry? This is done by creating puppets each with their own strengths and weaknesses. While the customisation isn’t the most in depth system there are plenty of cheeky little additions which makes it a little more personal. Even the choice of personality affects how the puppets grow their stats.
Movement around the map is in an 1st person perspective with enemies following you around or in set patterns. Plus you get to feel like Chris Jericho by breaking the walls down which is more fun than it has any right to be. Okay enough of the praise lets get into how to turn this game from being good to great or even incredible.
Firstly there should be an autorun feature if you have already explored the map. This just saves some time especially when having to backtrack. There should also be a way to merge your pacts which boost your allies abilities saving time when leveling up. More formations would also be welcome or instead of unlocking them trying out new positions in your team to gain benefits. Now the big big big old issue for me. With parties being as large as they are having only 6 classes is way too few. As of writing this I’m 15 hours into the game and there has been no way to unlock any new classes or any new tiers for classes.
With all this said and done Labyrinth of Refrain Coven of Dusk gets a solid 8/10. Without a doubt people will enjoy this game as much as I have but it still feels a little lacking in some areas. I honestly hope there is a sequel or at the least DLC which fixes my problems.
Leap into the game. You can do it!!!
Comentarios